Myspace re-unites sisters
June 20th, 2010 | by Jen |Tears of frustration have been replaced with tears of joy, knowing the search for their sister is finally over. A Bakersfield woman met her adult sister for the first time, thanks to MySpace.com. The sisters have waited a lifetime for this meeting. At the age of 18, Anjanette Higgins learned she had an older sister living in Germany, but she didn’t know her name or how to find her, and for more than 20 years, she had to live with the longing. “[It was] very painful growing up as a single child. Very, very painful, knowing I had a sibling out there,” Higgins said.
“Everyday I was thinking about her and I don’t know what I can do to find her,” Marion Ruebel, her German sister, said. For decades a childhood photo was the only image Ruebel had of her younger half-sister. She knew her little sister lived half-a world away in America. She even came to the United States in 1994 searching for Higgins.
“On my 30th birthday, I made a trip around the USA with a good friend of mine and tried to find her, but I didn’t,” Ruebel said. After several years of searching online with no luck, and frustrated, in May Ruebel searched Higgins first name only.
“I clicked MySpace on, and it goes 500-600 Anjanettes in the USA. I go for Bakersfield for good luck and I see an old picture of her, I knew it was her. I just feel it,” Ruebel said.
Amazingly, it was her sister’s MySpace page. While the page was set to private, Ruebel was able to get to Higgins’ daughter’s MySpace page to send her a message. “And she wrote me back and said ‘Yes, you found your sister.’, and I said oh my God, oh my God,” Ruebel said.
The following night the sisters spoke for the first time on the phone. “And the first thing we did was cry and tell each other we loved each other,” Higgins said. Ruebel is now visiting Higgins in Bakersfield, catching up on their separate lives and doing sisterly things, like checking out weekend yard sales.